Bill Gates: "Sapere Libero ? Ecco i nuovi Comunisti !"
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
In an interview on news.com, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates described free
culture advocates as a "modern-day sort of communists." Well
now.
Q: "In recent years, there's been a lot of people clamoring
to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just
a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, 'We've got to look
at patents, we've got to look at copyrights.' What's driving this, and do you
think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?
A(Bill Gates): "No, I'd say that of the world's economies,
there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are
fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day
sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers
and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives
should exist.
And this debate will always be there. I'd be the first to say that the patent
system can always be tuned--including the U.S. patent system. There are some
goals to cap some reform elements. But the idea that the United States has led
in creating companies, creating jobs, because we've had the best intellectual-property
system--there's no doubt about that in my mind, and when people say they want
to be the most competitive economy, they've got to have the incentive system.
Intellectual property is the incentive system for the products of the future."
